Do you know Heaven? Have you had the blessed opportunity during your days on this planet to find that thing, that person, that activity or event or song or painting, that transformed this clump of mud into clouds and sky? Have you found your Heaven? Have you found your bliss, your rapture, your radiant awesomeness?

Have you found that which makes you cry? That which makes you soar? That which is not open to laughter or jokes, but is held as the sacred, the not-to-be-touched, the private and personal? Have you seen the world from the perspective of an angel, your heart overflowing with love and joy? Have you found your secret, and stowed it away in an airtight box? Protected it from daylight and the grubby fingers of those around you who would smudge it up and tear it down if given the chance?
Have you felt ecstasy? Passion? Pride? Have you found that which forces trumpets to blare?

“My love for the game I don’t think can be measured man… I think if they took my heart out it would be a basketball… When I’m in between those line… I feel at peace… I feel free… I’m in paradise… I feel like I’m in my sanctuary… That ball, and that basket, it just makes me complete… Being in the zone… it’s an out-of-body experience… it supersedes the physical because… the world kinda’ goes away… and I’m just flying. I can’t hear anything out there on the floor. I can’t hear the crowd… you don’t see a hand in your face…. You know, it kind of feels surreal to me… like a superhero inside”.

“When I’m between those lines… I feel at peace… I feel free… I’m in paradise… I feel like I’m in my sanctuary”. For these men, it is basketball. For me, it was music– then philosophy– then bodybuilding.

People ask if I win money at the shows I compete in. No, I actually pay money to participate. Why? Because it is my Heaven. It is my sanctuary. And when I’m the gym, I feel at peace; I feel free. It’s the only time I turn my phone off– turn my brain off– don’t worry about schedules, agendas, or anybody else’s problems. It is my meditation. It is my private realm. It is that time when I am allowed to bear my soul, my true essence, to the world, without fear of repercussions or judgment or injury. It is just me, and a bar, and my ability to move it or not. It is when my eyes look inwards, and not outwards; it is when I hold my breath and stop talking. It is when all that matters is the next 60 minutes. It is my Heaven.

Have you found the pure, the white, the sparkly and bright? Have you found that which you would gladly give anything and everything to do, just one more time, if you only had one more moment to live? Have you found that which defines you, a title– “painter”, “sculptor”, “mother”? Have you found your salvation?

Do you know Heaven? These men do. These men are athletes– they are warriors– but not here, and not now. Here, they are simply souls gliding across wooden boards. They are grateful, at peace and free. There are no problems, no worries. There is simply bliss. There is simply a reason to awaken each day with a light step. There is simply a blazing fire that licks at the inner lining of each player, and forces his feet faster down the lane.

Have you found your Heaven, your patron saint for being? Is it the beaming smile of your child? The unguarded laughter of your wife or husband? Smashing a volleyball across the floor? Being placed in the middle of the lineup because, you know deep down, you’re in first place? Inventing a new recipe that makes mouths drool? Sticking a landing that seemed to defy physics, or inventing a new skill not yet named? Singing until your throat hurts? Pulling a heavy barbell off the floor? Holding a yoga pose in silence? Seeing your team take first? Is it the warm spring breeze blowing through the blinds on a sunny day? Or the rain falling to the ground, grouping in puddles to splash through like a little kid?

Do you know Heaven? Have you found that which cleanses, purifies, and leaves you new, unstained, unhurt, unblemished? That activity that stands as your symbol on your internal coat of arms? That which only your truest friends and loved ones can even begin to understand? And maybe even they don’t– maybe it’s just you, maybe it’s a feeling you can’t trust to share with the world. Maybe it’s your way of plugging your spirit directly into the fabric and lining of the universe, of becoming one with the world. Maybe it’s the only thing that can return an atomized existence, split and rendered into untold quantities of separated entities, into a singular plurality. Maybe it is your glue, your substrate, the aether of your universe, the pure fresh air and clear sky breathed by gods, unchangeable, permanent, forever.

Do you know Heaven? And will you fight for it, now and forever? Will you never let it go?

-David A. Johnston

Wolverine, by contrast, does not have a pretty bone in his body. He is gruff, and nasty, and animalistic. He constantly tows the line between being a good guy and a villain. And yet when he took center stage on the big-screen during the X-Men movies over the last several years, audiences loved and admired him.

It isn’t Wolverine’s adamantium skeleton that makes him superbly unique. Rather, it was his ability to heal– to not be hurt– that allowed for the adamantium skeleton in the first place. Let’s back up…

Wolverine was born with a genetic mutation that allows him to heal at an accelerated rate. Almost any wound or disease is corrected for by his body. This allowed Wolverine to survive the military’s experimental process of fusing his skeleton with a near-indestructible metal called “adamantium”, thus making him virtually impervious to harm.

Wolverine’s real power resides not in his claws. It resides in the fact that he cannot be scarred too deeply; it resides in the fact that his wounds are not substantial wounds, not deep, but mere flesh wounds, to be felt and glossed over, felt and forgotten as soon as they are experienced. His wounds do not stop him, and they do not define him. They happen, and they pass.

All my life, I let things affect me too deeply. I placed too much importance and too much weight into little things– all things. I viewed everything as important, as a life-and-death issue.

But as I grew, I wanted to be Wolverine. I wanted to be able to walk away from a battle– from stress, problems, drama– without a scratch. I wanted to be impervious to harm. I watched those around me affected by the trivial, caught up in the mundane, freaking out about little things and missing the bigger picture.

Now a new look in my eyes, my spirits rise,
Forget the past, present tense works and lasts.
New life in place of old life, unscarred by trials.
A new level of confidence and power.
(Pantera, A New Level)

And I learned: yes, Wolverine still feels pain, but it only touches him so deep. It only goes down to a certain level, and then it stops… and sits… and nobody and nothing can force it to hurt more.

So I decided I would be Wolverine, but my own version, without the genetic mutation. I would be impervious to pain, and guilt, and fear. I would make the decision to not let things touch me so deeply. I would learn to let it roll off my back.

“God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time. Enjoying one moment at a time. Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.”

I decided to lace my own bones– my own spirit– with adamantium, to make it impervious to the small and trivial blows dealt by life. Certain things matter. Many things matter. And many things don’t. I decided to take the time to sort them out, to tell the difference and rank them.

The decision to be Wolverine, to be indestructible, is not something magically discovered. It is not something one is born with. It is a choice. It is choosing to fully accept and acknowledge the fact that only you are responsible for your own happiness; that the circumstantial and uncontrollable aspects of your life are ultimately irrelevant and contribute in no large part to your current place in life. Lining your soul with an adamantium skeleton and attacking life with adamantium claws is not hard-wired in one’s person. It is not gifted from an external source. It is selected, consciously, as a method and mode of approaching the world.

Whatever my future may hold, I am fully aware that only I can determine my state of happiness and joy.

That state is not something handed to me by others, or something that I will stumble upon while wandering aimlessly through this life. It is, rather, waking up with the choice to be happy, overjoyed, and blissful.

So fly away, Superman, and save the world. Your life is near-perfect, and that’s great– must be nice to be born with alien powers that make you super-human.

The rest of us, by contrast, will be left to undergo our own experiment, to see if we can withstand the transformation from beings of terminable resolve to beings of indestructible spirit.

To see if we can face our trials, and come out unscarred.

To be less than perfect, and still be perfect, just without the fairytale curl atop our brows and flowing cape and tights.

True strength is not an innate trait. It is the ability to make the most of everything around us. It is an orientation towards the world. It is the resolve to keep external factors from affecting us any deeper than we decide is acceptable.

It is a trait we choose, and must continue to choose, each and every day.

-David A. Johnston

Time will not, however, help us out upon request.  “Wait up a second…”– time doesn’t have a second to spare.  “If you could give me just a moment…”– time has no moments to give.  Time just marches on, it just is, and we have to fit into it.  In this sense, time is not a sympathetic friend.

There are no dress rehearsals in this world.  There are no practices.  There are no second chances.  Every time you put that bar on your back, and every step you take, and every word you place on paper, is there forever.  There is no editing that.  There is no reversing that. There is no reversing anything.  In this sense, time can be incredibly harsh and cruel– it is an impartial judge, unwilling to budge in the least.  It does not allow for do-overs.

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity,
To seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment,
Would you capture it, or just let it slip?…
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment,
You own it, you better never let it go.
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow,
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime.
(Eminem, “Lose Yourself”)

In the above sense, there are no practice hits; every hit goes down in the books.  There are no mistakes, only failures– failure to do what you said you would do.  Time moves in a singular direction.  And you are the totality of the reps, steps, words and moments that led to this instant.  Each one matters, each one counts.  Every moment of your existence requires some degree of “motivation”, in the sense that you have to find reason, or justification, for putting forth the energy to do something.  The alternative is to do nothing.  “Life is a process of self-generated, self-sustaining action” (Ayn Rand).  And to that end, we find the answer to the question posed by my friend from my column several months back (Determination)– “I totally understand the need/desire to constantly seek the best within yourself, but doesn’t everyone need a break sometime?”  And the answer to that, quite literally, is: sure, when you’re dead– when time has left you in its wake, and continued to move forward without you.

…but…

But what about beginnings?  We all love fresh beginnings.  Everybody loves a good do-over.  And while there are technically no such things as do-overs, in another sense, life is an infinite series of do-overs.  Time is nothing but a sequence of moments repeating ad infinitum, a never-ending reel of opportunities to try your hand again at something, to practice and perfect and get better at and excel at some activity.  Because we have the capacity to carve time into chunks and segments inside our minds, we can view a series of missed opportunities as a singular period, or practice run, necessary in order to finally achieve our goal.

The easiest way to track the story of our lives is by carving it into larger headings, into chapters or epochs.  And each chapter needs a heading, an opening line…

…So we begin our paragraphs, our sentences– our “new periods” of success– with clearly-delineated sentences– –such as, “Today, January 1st, 2011, is the first day of me being successful.  January 1st, 2011, is the first day of the rest of my life. I resolve to finally accomplish my goal”.

A resolution is the grand-daddy of do-overs, the final do-over committing to no more do-overs.  It is commitment to the notion that there are no more dress rehearsals, that every moment matters, and that it’s time to ensure you quit repeating the same mistakes, you quit asking time to wait up, to spare a second, and instead, jump on board the train marching tirelessly towards its destination.

New Year’s Day– and resolutions, in general– are both potentially awesome and frightening.  On the one hand, it’s the biggest “beginning” of the year.  It is the official “Day of the Do-Over”, your public chance to call the last year, or several years, a dress rehearsal, a mere practice prior to this year, this moment in time, when life will truly begin, when you will stop trying to be successful and actually be successful, when you will stop wishing for greatness and actually hold onto greatness.  New Year’s Day gives people that blank page needed, that fresh chapter heading– “And now, we enter this stage”.

But at the same time, it’s just another day, like any other day, filled with moments, like all the other moments of the year.  And each moment and each day is a fresh beginning, a new chapter, a blank page that you have to fill with writing.  Even though we carve it up in our minds for the sake of cognitive clarity, time is not there to be carved or split or manhandled.  It is a juggernaut endlessly striving.  And in this sense, New Year’s Day is just another day; and a resolution is not so simple as declaring, “This is now how it will be”, and watching the events fall into place.  Like taking up a new sport, one cannot “resolve” to be great at it and expect instant success; yet one cannot spend the entire game staring at the playbook.  The timer continues to count down the seconds, and the end of the game is right around the corner.  Keep your feet moving, drive towards the goal, and complete that game, that chapter; then look forward to the next game.  Practice, drill, sweat until you have perfected the skill of being skilled per se, of being efficacious, of living within time, rather than watching it from outside, from the sidelines.

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity,
To seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment,
Would you capture it, or just let it slip?…
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow,
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime.
(Eminem, “Lose Yourself”)

Every opportunity comes once in a lifetime.  Resolve, this year, to live every moment with that mindset– to live in the moment, rather than outside of it.

Good luck with this newest chapter, “2011”.  May it be the greatest chapter in your story so far.
-David A. Johnston
12-31-10

Think of it like building your ultimate dream house. You would not merely settle for what was “available”. Once you had the property purchased, and the shell or structure of the home placed upon that property, you would then focus on the bigger task at hand– turning that “house” into a “home”. Which would mean what, exactly? It would mean picking your colors and your decorations– your paintings, the music in the background, your lighting. It would mean arranging your furniture in a way that was practical and used the space economically, meeting your needs and hopefully helping you to function at peak efficiency. It would mean replacing the tacky wallpaper with beautiful rich colors, or ripping out the stained carpet in favor of rich hardwood flooring. It would mean making each and every aspect important, and perfect.

I have long been a fan of the stylized movie– Hero, House of Flying Daggers, 300, The Matrix, Sin City. The films show an individual at the helm who leaves nothing to chance. And even if you think these movies are terrible, and thus might not be a fan of the end product, there is no doubting the internal logical consistency of the universe presented by the artist.

But what if we could reverse the process? What if we could take the model of the film, where every aspect is consciously selected, and apply it to our own lives? What if we could make our lives into movies?

I have often said that at the end of the day, I want my life to play like a highlight reel, a series of stories and tales so far-fetched and ridiculous that a stranger, upon hearing them compiled, would refuse to believe they belonged to a single real person. I want to make sure my life is lived not like a naturalistic character study, replete with drawn-out shots focusing on the mundane; but rather, a stylized action movie, with over-the-top romance, melodramatic persona’s, ridiculous series of events that could never happen in the real world…

…the real world… an interesting concept. And by that, of course, we mean “the average world”. We mean the world of not rocking the boat, right?

But what if we took it upon ourselves to rock that boat? To go on strike against that world, and reinvent it? What if we were to treat our lives like a script that had to be narrowed down to 120 pages, and we wanted those 120 pages to have internal consistency, excitement, stories bursting off the page, characters unique and never-before-encountered? What if we had to select the music to go along with particular scenes? What if we had to choose the costumes, and the lighting?

When I sense those moments of importance in my life, I try to step back, to hover above my own body, watch from a third-person perspective, and take it all in, like a scene from a movie. I try to understand the beauty of the situation, even when it’s painful or difficult, and see how it logically flows from the previous scene, and necessitates the next page of the script. I try to take a mental snapshot– not a memory, but an image containing how I feel, what I think, what I heard, what I smelled; I try to hear the music, and the particular phrasing, and how the grammar and word choice rolls off the tongue; I try to make a lighting-fast edit in my head and ask, “Does this make for good copy?; Will this sell tickets to my movie?”

I have to remind myself that I’m the producer, and the star, and the final product is mine to be proud of– or not. I have to remind myself that there is no director of my film besides myself, no one waiting in the wings to yell “Action!” when something needs to get done, and “Cut!” when I get a break. There is no one to coach me on my lines, or my presentation.

There is just me, and my movie– my life. And it can be internally consistent, with a logical beauty and elegance; with hand-selected colors and sounds; with movements echoed by sonic swells; with physical appearances reflecting the internal status of characters. Or it can be a hodge-podge of elements randomly thrown together, with no theme song, no motif, no beginning, middle or end; no moral to be told; no rhyme or reason; a simple product of happenstance, with the protagonist at the end declaring, “How the hell did I get here?”

I vow to make mine the former, with all 120 pages jam-packed with so much ridiculousness that nobody will ever believe it all belonged to one person. Fully stylized, and fully rocking the boat.

-David A. Johnston

“See, I don’t train for reps, I don’t train for time. I train for failure. I like to see my body fail. I like to stay in bed for a whole day because that’s how tired I am from working.” – Ray Lewis – Baltimore Ravens

We have had it hammered into our heads that failure is okay. Over the last decade, the politically-correct thinkers out there, full of nothing but love for their children, have removed “rules” and “points” and “winners” and “losers” and “grades” from sports and schools and just about any activity conceivable, so as to not shatter poor Johnny’s fragile ego.

The first step towards accomplishment is in identifying that success– achieving goals– matters.

And we see now all around us the result of removing said rules, points, winners, losers, grades. We see not one, but generation after generation getting progressively softer, slower, fatter, lazier, whinier, rotting at our cores. We see that the supposed rally to protect self-esteem, by means of removing the necessary cause of self-esteem, has led to a world where there is no concept of “worth”, and no concept of “esteem”. Nothing matters when everything is equal.

The second step towards accomplishment is in identifying that because success matters, failure is not okay. It is to be avoided.

One of my clients this week informed me that her sister, a grade school teacher, now has to allow her students continued chances to re-write their papers for class. If a paper is written and submitted– and is poorly done– the kid can then rewrite it (with the teacher’s comments in mind, of course), and then rewrite it again, and again, and again, until it is perfect. This client of mine joked, “I plan to attend a school board meeting when my daughter begins school, and inform them that my child is not allowed do-overs”. Nothing quite as fantastic as breeding the mentality that you will be allowed an infinite number of chances at mediocrity.

So I began to approach the world with the idea that failure is not okay– that doing “just enough” is not enough. I, too, have approached the high dive. I, too, saw it as a child, and was scared. I, too, was ashamed that I was scared. I was embarrassed. I knew I was weak. So I forced myself to climb it, again and again and again. And belly flop. And it was painful. But being scared and weak was more painful.

The third step towards accomplishment is in identifying that, in order to have continued success, one must have numerous failures first.

There is not a single pro athlete with a perfect record. No basketball player sunk every shot. No running back scored on every down. No bodybuilder took first in every contest. There is no millionaire with a perfect investment record. There is no beautiful overture that was written perfectly the first time.

I trained a client once, a very accomplished 17 year old soccer player, who started crying halfway through a set of dumbbell shoulder presses. I asked her what was wrong. She told me through tears, “I’m used to succeeded at everything, I’m not used to failing at anything, and you make me fail on every set!”

The fourth and final step towards accomplishment is in embracing failure, actually chasing it, reveling in it, on the understanding that it is necessary for success, that it walks with success, that the two are twins holding hands, and meeting with one means you will have to talk to the other.

My soccer player did not understand that failure, in weight training, is success. She had not reached the fourth step.

Ray Lewis mentions training to failure, making his body fail, and loving exhaustion. Some might call this masochism. Others will recognize it merely as the mindset of a champion. Ray Lewis knows that to fail is to succeed, and therefore, he chases that feeling.

To stare failure in the face, to acknowledge fear and own it and walk with it, to embrace pain as a road to pleasure– these are the means to success. Or you can remove the rules, the points, the winners and losers, and see what happens. I, personally, am not optimistic.

When I took my class at the Maryland State two months ago, as overjoyed as I was– as in-love-with-life as I was at that moment– I remember a surreal feeling that I couldn’t then identify or name. It was a feeling of partial emptiness and sadness. It was the feeling that I had won my class, and therefore had “done good enough”. In a way, it was terrible. For the first time, I was told I had gotten there. It felt like I was being given permission to slow down, to not push so hard.

And I thought to myself: how lucky that I did not win the overall, so now I have a reason to continue pushing. How lucky that I was beaten, because now the next two years of my life will be fueled by a demonic fury to be better, to grow stronger, larger, leaner, to propel myself down a path towards continued success. My failure became a step allowing me to ascend to the next level of success.

I will chase failure, and fear, and pain. I will seek out the things that scare me, and stare them down. I will not be satisfied “conquering fears”, but will instead come to love that which scares the hell out of me. And when I encounter the twins of success and failure, I will court them both, equally, as the two halves of life.

-David A. Johnston

Ever make a decision that you knew in advance was going to piss people off? That would enrage everybody? That would be criticized as wrong, or foolish, or impossible?

Did that criticism stop you, or did you move forward? I don’t mean stopping to consider the arguments; after all, I’m a big fan of weighing the facts and coming to as objective a judgment as possible. Rather, I mean having weighed all the facts, considered the alternatives, and still made a decision that will enrage a friend or family member: at that point in time, did you move forward with your judgment, or bend?

I’m not talking about playing the role of underdog. Everybody loves an underdog. A few rare people love a hero. I’m talking about playing the role of the villain– accepting the role of the villain, and not letting it sting.

I kinda’ like being the villain. Provided I think my decision is proper, being the villain is fun. It’s a shame not everybody shares the same vision– the same interpretation of how all the facts will pan out over time– but that’s just life. Some people cannot handle that disagreement. I love it. It makes me happy deep within, when somebody criticizes my decisions or beliefs, to stand there and silently think, “Well, I guess we will see… Give it time…”.

My life has been a long series of putting forth preposterous scenarios, and then making them happen– being told, “You can’t do that!”, and proving the world wrong. It’s not because I derive a great satisfaction from proving everybody wrong (although I would be lying if I said that wasn’t a little fun). Rather, it’s because my vision simply tends to be different. I just do things my own way. Always have, always will. And I’ll never understand that there is an alternative, try as I might. Sacrificing one’s independent judgment is giving away one’s mind and soul, with a pretty little bow on top of the package.

“You once asked me why I think I’m always right. And I realized you’re right. At least I think you’re right. … I don’t really know now, do I?” (Dr. House, House: M.D.)

There is a sappy saying that many parents and grandparents told their children growing up: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. That is to say, learn to make the best out of the worst situation, don’t always expect life to be automatically perfect and wonderful, continue moving with your best foot forward regardless of circumstances.

I’ve often wondered if I can chance that saying to: When life gives you lemons, turn them into a prime steak with a fine wine; don’t settle for lemonade, it still kinda’ sucks in the big scheme of things.

The alchemist always intrigued me– “Alchemy… is both a philosophy and an ancient practice focused on the attempt to change base metals into gold, investigating the preparation of the ‘elixir of longevity’, and achieving ultimate wisdom, involving the improvement of the alchemist as well as the making of several substances described as possessing unusual properties”. [Wikipedia] Turning a common metal into gold. Creating a formula for immortality. Slightly stronger than turning lemons into lemonade. I’m sure they, too, were criticized and questioned by everybody around them, seen as the villains of their time. And I’m sure it did not stop them.

But some are stopped. Some receive the questions– from friends, family, coworkers, peers– and become paralyzed. The questions kill the movement, destroy the action, and end the decision. In the video above, LeBron James questions this himself– until, at the end, you seem him floating above the rim, continuing his ascent, continuing to move forward, upward, outward, to grow, to roll across the planet like a force, without permission, without consent, without agreement, perhaps without smiles and nods and the praise he was once given. He is willing to be the villain rather than sit still. The video is entitled “Rise”. And he continues to Rise off the screen as the video comes to a close. He refuses paralysis.

“I take risks; sometimes patients die. But not taking risks causes more patients to die, so I guess my biggest problem is I’ve been cursed with the ability to do the math.” (Dr. House, House: M.D.)

The failure to act, in actuality, is the acceptance of death. The only truly wrong decision is no decision, or indecision, take your pick. We can forecast the future to some small degree, but “doing the right thing” is more about making the right decision, in the moment, with whatever you’ve been given– lemonades, lead, or an opportunity to play for a new team. When everything is over, even “legacy” and “reputation” become something of empty concepts, if they are tied to fear, if they stop you from walking a new path…

…if they stop you in your attempt to turn lead into gold, and lemons into wine.

-David A. Johnston

“I often think that he’s the only one of us who’s achieved immortality.  I don’t mean in the sense of fame, and I don’t mean that he won’t die someday.  But he’s living it.  I think he is what the conception really means.  You know how people long to be eternal.  But they die with every day that passes.  When you meet them, they’re not what you met last.  In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves.  They change, they deny, they contradict– and they call it growth.  And in the end there’s nothing left, nothing unrevered or unbetrayed; as if there had never been any entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out of an unformed mass.  How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment?  But Howard– one can imagine him existing forever.”  (The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand)

Some people spend their entire existence trying to “find themselves,” aimlessly ricocheting from one trend to the next, one school of thought to another like disconnected and disjointed dots on a map, with no discernible pattern.  There is an underlying longing and neuroticism, not quite sure where they belong, but sure that this is not the place, that there must be something else, something more important, something happier or friendlier.  In the end, it is never found, and for the self-seeking soul, life is nothing but a mirror reflecting the external.

Others spend their lives “making themselves,” building from scratch a soul of solidity.  While often unsure throughout long stretches of life, this type eventually settles on a goal, on desires, on favorites– their favorite movie, song, book, restaurant.  The individual of self-made soul began as an individual of self-seeking soul, but then actually put forth the effort to discover it.

And then there is the third and rarest type: the individual of pure self, the person who stepped into this world completed, with attitude and inclinations already in place, with the inability to understand compromise, the inability to understand other people’s opinions, the inability to be swayed or coerced.  Like the Greek goddess Athena, these individuals spring into the world fully-formed, ready for battle, weapons in hand.

This final type is the most threatening because they cannot be molded to fit the rules, they cannot be swayed by opinion.,  Conceptions of “appropriate” and “inappropriate,” “offensive” and “inoffensive,” do not play heavily into the mind of the pre-made soul.  Instead, all that matters is what makes sense and what does not.  And for those who get upset or insulted in the meantime, well, that’s just too bad.

True spiritual independence scares people– it scares the hell out of people– because it takes away everybody else’s leverage.  When people know that your decisions are based simply on an evaluation of the facts, rather than on norms and trends, they realize they have lost an important societal stranglehold over your actions.  Hence the stress on fitting in, belonging, not making waves, maintaining status quo.  Peer pressure does not cease to exist at eighteen or twenty-four; for most, it continues well into adulthood and even old age– all on the premise that, for some unknowable reason, I’m supposed to actually care about, and make decisions based on, what you think.

But I don’t care what you think.  I care what the world says, what the facts say.  Everything else is negotiable.  You can be controlled by it, or you control it.

For those of pre-made soul, the decision is clear: control the facts, rather than be controlled by them.  The man of pre-made soul does not die every day, does not change, does not deny, does not contradict.  He fixates on his goal and walks towards it.  He sees in the periphery those who are asking him to change, begging him to stop, pleading with him to be “open to suggestion and compromise.”  But the steady step towards the inevitable, toward the goal, does not change.

We cannot live forever.  A decision, on the other hand, can.  An action, once taken, cannot be erased and cannot die.  It will endure, with immortality.  Be prepared to scare those around you with your resolve.  Be ready to agitate those who disagree with your path.  Most importantly, realize that you may be walking stretches of your journey alone, with nobody there to lean on or to comfort you; however, the end goal is still there, in sight, and will be reached with continued forward steps.  You can be the child, needing to be dragged forward by your hand, struggling to keep up; or you can drop the hand, walk independently, and choose to let others keep up with you.

Some souls were not meant for leashes.  Some were not meant for chains.  Some souls have simply always existed, and always will, brought into this world with resolve that will not cease.  Will never die.  Cannot die.

I can vividly remember what it felt like when I was under water, holding my breath. I have tried repeating the breath-holding contest in recent years and found that it is a somewhat miserable experience. It burns; it hurts; it starts to feel like you’re going to pass out. When we went to Pittsburgh this past spring I drove through several long tunnels, and I held my breath from one end to the next, just to see if I could do it. I had to speed up in order to make it– but I made it.

After much contemplation and soul searching, I have decided I will not compete again until spring and summer of 2012, because that is how much time it will take to make the necessary improvements to my physique to take it to the next level. I’m looking at about ninety weeks.

Ninety weeks. It sounds like forever. It sounds like holding your breath for an eternity. I can imagine my lungs burning over the next 90 weeks and wanting to explode from the pressure. Of course, I can come up for air whenever I want– take a break, loosen my focus, be a little saner. But doing so will reset the timer back to zero, and all records will have to be set again from scratch. I have a vision of a little kid fighting, staring up through the water, watching the clock, knowing there is an end, eventually.

Every year, I have gotten better at holding my breath– at taking the slow and conscious strides towards refinement, betterment, success. Every year, I have learned to endure the burning sensation a little bit longer, to fight it, to ignore it and not heed its call.

Learning to endure that burn, that sensation of explosion, like lactic acid building up in one’s bloodstream, in one’s veins, is all about conditioning, about practice, about setting a goal and surpassing it to simply move on to the next goal. It is about will and decision. It is like having fire and ice running through one’s body, sensations, as opposed to the numbness of resignation. It is painful. It is exhausting. It is wonderful.

I have learned to be hungry, and to enjoy hunger. Hunger allows a true appreciation for what it is to be full, to be sated, to be satisfied. I’m talking true physical hunger, not some metaphorical craving for betterment. True physical hunger is an unknown sensation for most Americans. It is an acquired taste– at first painful, but slowly accepted, a background sensation telling you to keep moving, to not sleep, to keep your muscles tensed and flexed and your teeth clenched down. How long you can endure that hunger is akin to how long you can hold your breath– a challenge, a test of will and endurance, fighting one’s instinctual inclinations and overriding the circuitry of the human body.

We all know that food and air are basic conditions for survival– but how much do you need? Can you get by on less? Can you condition yourself to run optimally in less-than-optimal conditions? Can you withstand the fire and ice that will flood your body when deprived of simple comforts?

The best way to describe that burn is the feeling of holding onto a weight when your grip begins to give out– when you can feel it slipping out of your hands, out of your fingers, but it hasn’t yet fully slipped; and you know if you squeeze just a little bit harder, you can hold onto the bar for just a little bit longer; but it hurts, so you want to stop; but you want to advance, so you continue to squeeze; and you feel yourself being pulled in different directions, how long you can ignore the sensation, how long you can fight the fire and the ice in your fingers and hands and forearms, versus how badly you want to get to number ten, to complete your set and get all of your repetitions. Pay attention to the feeling. See if you fight it, or if you embrace it. See if there is a way to squeeze harder, and what would make you want to squeeze harder.

Ninety weeks sounds like an eternity to hold one’s breath. It also sounds like just enough time to change everything.

-David A. Johnston

9-3-10

Henry Rollins (b.1961) is best known as the lead vocalist of the pioneer punk rock band Black Flag in the early 80s and the Rollins Band in the 90s. He has done extensive spoken-word performances, and was a contributing essayist for Details magazine in the 90s.

I feel a certain spiritual kinship, and am strongly inspired, when reading the words of Henry Rollins. He is known for being over-the-top, and can be described as “extreme” or “super intense” in his approach to everything. He never holds back on saying what he really thinks, to the point of offending people if necessary. He is great at getting individuals to think through things on a different level because of how hard he smacks you over the head with his verbiage. Agree with him or not, one thing is certain, you will remember what he says– in part because he seamlessly melds seemingly opposing elements: punk rock singer, meathead weight lifter, and intellectual.

I read this article about a decade ago, long before I started lifting weights. It “sounded” right at the time. But it would only be years later, after embarking on my own journey, that I would know how right Mr. Rollins really was. Please enjoy his thoughts on the greater significance of strength training.

-David A. Johnston

*******************************************************************************

From Details Magazine, January 1993

"Iron and the Soul" by Henry Rollins

I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention. To not be like you parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. Completely.

When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other boys thought I was crazy.

I hated myself all the time. As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway between classes.

Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked. Teachers gave me a hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.

Then came Mr. Pepperman, my advisor. He was a powerfully built Vietnam veteran, and he was scary. No one ever talked out of turn in his class. Once one kid did and Mr. P lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the blackboard.

Mr. P could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me if I had ever worked out with weights. I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them to my mom’s car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.

Monday came and I was called into Mr. P’s office after school. He said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we were getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing.

In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes. I didn’t want to blow it. I went home that night and started right in. Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other students didn’t know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I could feel it.

Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could ever take it away. You couldn’t say shit to me.

It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong. When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn’t teach you anything. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you.

It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.

I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.

I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr. Pepperman.

Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.

Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body. Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn’t see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads.

I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live.
Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole. I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the Iron mind.

 
Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind. The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.

 
The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.

Henry Rollins

“A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”– Walter Bagehot

All my life, I’ve been terrible at taking direction, not for lack of intelligence, but lack of understanding why somebody would be interested in doing something simply because “that’s the way that things are done”. Right out of the womb, I had to figure things out the hard way, figure them out on my own, or I couldn’t figure them out at all. If there was a “wrong way” of doing things, I did it, just to see why it was the “wrong way”.

Wearing thermal underwear in the middle of 100-degree Chicago weather in July? I’m going to try it. And shorts in the dead of winter? Sign me up.

I like “learning the hard way”.

I never understood etiquette, or the function of etiquette, or why anybody would want to follow etiquette.

I don’t understand “rules”. I mean, I understand rules of the universe, like gravity, or cause and effect; but I never understood “the rules” that I was expected to play by, the “rules of man” so to speak. I like to view them more as suggestions, and then test them, and break them, with a condescending grin.

At the age of 8, I decided I wanted to grow my hair long because my passion was hard rock music, specifically Guns N’ Roses. My father told me I could do it, so long as I understood that I would have to work that much harder to prove my intelligence to those around me– that I would most likely be perceived as “different”, and possibly “worse”, for choosing something so outside the norm. It has become a cliché in our culture that “perception is reality”. Maybe this is true for those whose reality is dictated exclusively by the opinions of others. To those of independent spirit, reality is reality– or taking it a step further, reality is what you chose to make of it, what you will it to be, not what you chose to let others make of it for you.

When I arrived in Columbia, Maryland, and had to rebuild my personal training business from scratch, the “normal” thing to do would be to present one’s self as approachable and friendly so as to attract as much potential business as possible. And of course, what was my business concept? To grow out a Mohawk and long goatee so as to look as unapproachable as possible. Why? Because I wanted to take the harder path– or more importantly, because I wanted to prove that I could do what people said I could not, and should not, do. I wanted to show that it was irrelevant, that there were more important factors involved in rising to the top and being successful. Within less than a year’s time, I had the top sales record at Lifetime, Columbia, purported “bad attitude” and Mohawk included. All the “perceptions” out there proved to not really be an issue.

This year, I have decided to compete again in several bodybuilding competitions. Prepping for a competition is like a full-time job in and of itself. I have decided to prep, while running a very time-consuming business, and while having a new child at home. I was told several times last year from close friends and family that I might not be able to do it, that I might be stretching too much, that it might be unreasonable to try to accomplish all of these things at once. Being told I couldn’t do it was all the more reason to make it happen.

I am now 10 weeks out from the NPC Philadelphia show on June 26th, and feeling great about my chances at winning.

Indeed, a great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

The self-proclaimed Greatest of All Time:

-David A. Johnston

4/17/2010

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